More than 43 million Americans have a physical disability of some sort. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has long been involved with developing fire-safety education materials and strategies to accommodate people with disabilities. According to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), from 2007 to 2009, an estimated 700 residential-building fires involved individuals with disabilities were reported annually. Of those reports, only about 8% of the affected residential buildings had full or at least partial automatic fire-suppression systems (mostly sprinkler systems). See “Residential Building Fires Involving Individuals With Physical Disabilities”, Topical Fire Report Series, Vol. 12, Issue 6, June 2011.
National Fire-Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 10 establishes requirements for portable fire extinguishers to ensure that portable fire extinguishers will work as intended in order to provide a first line of defense against fires of limited size. However, the NFPA-10 Standards fall short of the requirements set forth by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). For example, under the NFPA standard, the installation-height limit for a portable fire extinguisher, as measured at the handle, is 60 inches (1.5 m) for fire extinguishers weighing more than 40 lb. (18 kg). However, to comply with the ADA, the installation-height limit is 40 inches (1.2 m). Similarly, fire-extinguisher installations are limited under the NFPA standards to no more than four inches of protrusion into the adjacent path of travel in order to protect people with low vision/blindness, which the ADA Rule on this provides for 48 inches to allow access for people in wheelchairs, but is also related to helping other people with disabilities as well.
One area of accommodation for people with disabilities that remains unaddressed pertains with the fact that a typical portable fire extinguisher require that a user employ two hands to effectively use the fire extinguisher. According to the NFPA, when assessing fire risk, it is important to identify vulnerable groups or individuals, including children, the elderly, and those with disabilities. Unfortunately, the standards set by the NFPA and the ADA really only address the needs of persons who are wheelchair-bound and/or are visually impaired/blind. However, even those standards fail to completely address the physical challenges associated with effectively operating a portable fire extinguisher.
The typical portable fire extinguisher is designed such that to use it, two hands and a reasonable amount of strength are required to hold, to pull the safety pin, break the zip-lock tie, then with one hand hold the nozzle while with the other hand squeezing the actuating handle. Unfortunately, some disabled persons who have suffered the loss the use of an arm or hand, an amputation, nerve damage, dislocation, and/or other injury/malady that prevent the use of one of the user's arms or hands will not be able to defend themselves against a fire using a standard portable fire extinguisher.
What is needed is either a redesigned portable fire extinguisher that is adapted to allow use using only one arm and/or a retrofit kit that allows an existing standard portable fire extinguisher to be used with one arm.